Not The Young Guy anymore

0800 position 16-49S 177-27E. At anchor in Malakati Bay, Yasawa Island, Fiji

Yesterday morning Rob and Renee got dressed up and went ashore for church and lunch. They came back four hours later and Rob reported that the first half hour of church was enjoyable with the Fijian singing but the hour and a half long hellfire and brimstone sermon that followed was tedious. Their lunch later of grilled wahoo, caught the night before by their host, was great.

After they returned to Van Diemen we weighed anchor and started moseying south. I spent a couple of hours yesterday going through the three Fiji cruising guides we have aboard to find the best anchorages here in the Yasawas. I've picked out a dozen, none more than nine miles apart. That's how far we had to go yesterday, and at 4PM we pulled into uninhabited Malakati Bay at the southern end of Yasawa Island. The U shaped bay is protected by a couple of large offshore islands. There were two other yachts there when we arrived, but this is a big bay and we found a lovely cove with our own private white sand beach.

Eric and I were itching to get ashore and have a look around so we grabbed beers, jumped in the dinghy, and headed in as soon as we got the boat put to bed. We found a pristine beach with no sign of humanity. It didn't look like anybody had been there since the last storm erased the footprints above the high water mark. We spent half an hour walking the length of the beautiful quarter mile long beach. I had started strolling back and Eric was lying on the sand lounging in the shade of the rocks at the far end of the beach when I looked up to see that the empty dinghy was underway and headed out towards Van Diemen.

We hadn't bothered to pull the dinghy very far up the beach when we landed because I thought the tide was falling. Apparently not. I yelled to Eric and took off sprinting down the beach dropping my empty beer bottle, pealing off my hat, glasses, shirt, and emptying my pockets as I ran. Eric did the same and caught me just before I got to where the dinghy was picking up speed in the offshore wind. It looked like a garage sale on the previously unblemished beach behind us. As he sprinted past me Eric yelled "Let the young guy do it!", and he plunged into the water. He caught up to the drifting boat and swam it back in. I'm glad we noticed when we did. We had a good laugh about it later, but it wouldn't have been much fun to report to Rob that we'd misplaced his dinghy.

Dang. I used to be "the young guy"...

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